Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/148

 "Oh, don't say that, please," she answered at last, in a tone of entreaty which had nothing of conventional modesty, but which expressed the dread of having, in this case too, to choose and decide. What made her dread great was precisely the force which, as it would seem, ought to have banished all dread—the consciousness of what was in her own heart. It was terrible to have to surrender herself to that.

"I haven't the idea that it will matter much to you," said Osmond. "I have too little to offer you. What I have—it's enough for me; but it's not enough for you. I have neither fortune, nor fame, nor extrinsic advantages of any kind. So I offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it can't offend you, and some day or other it may give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure you," he went on, standing there before her, bending forward a little, turning his hat, which he had taken up, slowly round, with a movement which had all the decent tremor of awkwardness and none of its oddity, and presenting to her his keen, expressive, emphatic face. "It gives me no pain, because it is perfectly simple. For me you will always be the most important woman in the world."

Isabel looked at herself in this character—looked intently, and thought that she filled it with a certain grace. But what she said was not an expression of this complacency. "You don't offend me; but you ought to remember that, without being offended, one may be incommoded, troubled." "Incommoded": she heard herself saying that, and thought it a ridiculous word. But it was the word that came to her.

"I remember, perfectly. Of course you are surprised and startled. But if it is nothing but that, it will pass away. And it will perhaps leave something that I may not be ashamed of."

"I don't know what it may leave. You see at all events that